Follow your destiny,
Water your plants,
Love your roses,
The rest is shadows - Of unknown destiny.
Reality is always More or Less Than what we want
Only we are always Equal to ourselves.
Sometimes the universe arranges the perfect introduction. A random visit to a Portuguese bookstore and the genius of Fernando Pessoa's slipped into my hands like a secret note passed by destiny itself - just before my long layover flight from Lisbon to Cairo.
His words found me—or perhaps I found them—and suddenly I wasn't traveling alone to Egypt. In this journey I have already met a new friend and I will write about him more once I know him more. But now, let's begin with Cairo.
As our plane descended on the vast desert land greened by Nile, I saw them. The ethereal triangles thrust in the earth's heart, their shadows casting another triangle forming diamond like shapes on a desert canvas. The sighting was so sudden and unexpected. No wait in the lines, no museum tickets. They were just out there. They looked very familiar yet so foreign. I can't yet put finger on it what impressed me - the scale, the colors, the composition, or they being so accessible.
Cairo-Giza
Landing in Cairo revealed exactly where the green (the Nile patch) surrenders to brown desert. I have observed similar phenomena as you take off from Santa Ana in California heading East—clear the mountain range and desert swallows everything.
Here in Cairo, though, civilization plants itself in the desert - about 22 million people live here. Cairo's sheer scale stunning.
I wasn't ready for Cairo at all. Mumbai raised me and I haven't yet gotten stunned by any metropolis. I have lived in the dessert cities like Jeddah and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. But Cairo operates on a different level.
My hotel appointed driver Khalid picked me up at the airport and as he drove like a race driver across the Cairo highways, I got my first close glimpse at the ground level. First what stunned me was the absence of green. The city was desert brown everywhere. We went past hundreds of buildings that were half-complete (seemed like people actually lived in them). Some of them left incomplete intentionally and others were active construction sites. Construction dust mingled with air, painting haze across the sky like sci-fi movie openings. It felt like desert version of Kevin Costner's Waterworld. (Yes, I like that movie).
It felt like Cairo shares geographic space Four thousand years in the past and four thousand years in the future.
I'm not condemning Cairo. There is a swankier side of the city (Just like other South Asian cities) we will talk about later in the blog. I figure what the first time India visitors must feel after seeing the Dharavi slum after landing in Mumbai.
So keep this in mind as you read: no first-world prejudice colors this blog. I belong from all worlds. My narration reconstructs what I witnessed.
As this blog will unfold, you will read about kindness, hospitality and resilience of Egyptian people in spite of challenging economic, climate conditions.
The first look
After crossing the bridge over the Nile we arrived in Giza and to my hotel. My hotel—dirt cheap—sat a stone's throw from the pyramids. The Triangles filled my window, even visible from my bed. They also filled by heart with enthusiasm. After check in I immediately went to the open air terrace to take it all in.
The imagination that had nested in my mind for almost 45 years, since first hearing about them, finally dissolved. It is hard to describe the moment. It wasn't fulfillment or disappointment of expectation. It was collapse of symbolic into real. It was an ontological shock - a sudden non-negotiable realization of our own finitude against its infiniteness.
Those perfectly geometric icons that we know of have stood there, outlasting presidents, fascists, billionaires, emperors, kings, popes, entire civilizations—even the mummies they housed—laughing at all of the above about their.
The power of these three triangles is magnetic. When you witness perfection on such scale of dimension (the time, the physical scale) every other human , political and social construct is rendered temporary and trivial.
Pilgrimage without doctrine
Over the next four days, I saw people from all corners of the world pouring in, speaking every language imaginable, arriving on pilgrimage. No religion, Influencer, Bible, culture, or history commanded them—just their sheer fascination with something extending so far beyond religion or humanity.
I saw people stood staring at the pyramids in complete introspection, nothing else. Some believe they are human made, so believe they are alien constructed. That, in my view, captures the pyramids' true significance—they ignite these emotions in our minds, forcing us to recognize something exists beyond ourselves.
They don't answer the questions of our existence. They are the questions materialized in perfect form. What are we?
But I had to wait another 12 hours to see them from real close. That afternoon I had a date with the Ferros. I had to get for my trip to the Grand museum that was about to start in a couple of hours.
Guide! Guide! Guide!
My hotel manager Sharef was true to his name ' an honest man'. He let me check in at 10 a.m. another example of Egyptian hospitality and nicety! Excellent English and Italian speaker and welcoming person, he walked me through all the guide options and booked my plans for the next three days.
Like I said earlier, my hotel was cheap. What I decided to save on hotel rent, I spent on the guide and every dollar was worth it. Later I realized how lucky I was after hearing from the other guests who did not avail the guide and the cab services. I saved so much time and frustration getting in and out of the museums and pyramids just because I had all arrangements premade.
By the way Cairo doesn't have a monopoly on scammers, they are in each city.
Day 0 The Museum
At 1 PM sharp, my guide (Ahmed) and driver (Khalid) arrived that afternoon and shepherded me through the long lines.
The museum fascinates and swells with national pride. You'd think nothing could dominate the eternal pyramids, yet somehow this place manages it. It had just thrown open its doors, and school kids, adults, and families from across Egypt streamed in alongside tourists from around the world speaking every language. This museum operates at world-class level—dwarfing the Louvre, the Met, Pompidou, even airports. The structure astonishes, and its sculptures and artifacts tower over everything. They're curated like the living kings and queens they represent.
We blazed through the entire Grand Egyptian Museum that day. Ahmed walking me through the point to point as an experience navigator and me telling him precisely what I was not interested in seeing in order to save the time. I marked my favorite pieces and places to revisit on my encore visit on the last day.
They're not just curated—they're ceremoniously placed as if inhabiting a city that exists eternally. I'd throw down premium prices to return one day for a preview devoid of crowds.
Reflecting on my experience now, I realize the design draws from the pyramid's geometric patterns. Steps and escalators lift you slowly upward through one huge, flowing space. At one point, pyramids fill your view—though my hotel room commanded a better view.
https://www.archdaily.com/1036488/the-grand-egyptian-museum-heneghan-peng-architects
I didn't linger at the Tutankhamun section on the sixth floor which were the most crowds were focused on. My interest locked onto the simplified, modern-art-like paintings Egyptians carved six millennia ago.
What confounded and had drawn me here: 3,000-5,000 years before Greeks and Romans figured out realism art, and long before the Renaissance and modern art erupted, Egyptians had already distilled art to its essence. Simplified lines, shapes, composition. Long before Picasso dazzled the world with cubism, it already existed on earth and he even was inspired by it. I craved seeing it all at the source, in its wholeness.
I stopped at stunning spots to capture the lines in the presence of the actual art—no artist's name attached. This felt alive in the presence of timeless pieces. Did they know their work would outlast millennia?
Copying the lines in my sketchbook, I grasped how meaning packed into them. There color palette was limited but soothing. The postures, the angles and characters were determined and intended. The composition was stunning. Above all, they were designed to survive thousands of years.
They functioned like math equation—potent, delivering maximum impact using minimum lines and zero clutter. The angles, the composition, all mathematically precise, just like the pyramids themselves. They formed geometric shapes. I traced them almost mindlessly, but they satisfied something in my eyes.
After about four hours, I escaped the museum and stepped back into hustler noise and tourist frustration—people who couldn't summon their Ubers. I breezed through all that and settled into my car.
An overnight stay at the Athens airport (all to snag the cheapest flight out) had drained me, so I reluctantly followed my guide's suggestion to visit this Papyrus Institute of Cairo. I expected another Istanbul carpet store—elaborate demonstration leading to hard sell.
This technique of transforming papyrus plant into paper—Egyptians invented it thousands of years before other civilizations figured it out.
As a tourist I held my guard. My budget and my suitcase didn't allow me to buy much and didnt want to waste the sales girls time. After clarifying I wasn't buying any paintings, I started to leave when I asked my host about raw papyrus paper I could paint on. I am big sucker for a handmade papers. I collect them and use them for my mixed media art.
She introduced me to the local artist who creates all their paintings. We just started chatting and I showing them my museum sketches triggered immediate recognition—he admired how perfectly I'd transcribed the script. The work impressed them enough to offer me paper to paint on for free.
I quickly redrew and painted one my sketches on the papyrus paper, and store employees gathered around me. We completed the piece within 15 minutes collectively, and watching it emerge as completely collaborative art rewarded me deeply. I used their paper, their colors. I gave that piece to the local hostess who helped me create it. She, in turn, gifted me a small piece from the store. I bought a large sheet of papyrus to carry home.
An experience like this is why I travel. That carried my heart in Egypt. The people.
Exhaustion pulled at me after that long day, so we headed back.
On our way, we stopped at a restaurant for traditional Egyptian food. I have to say, the food disappointed me most on that first day. It continued disappointing on the second day. Only on the third day did something really good reveal itself—but that story comes later.
I came home tired yet buzzing with excitement to raise the stakes the next day. We were aiming for the only living, existing wonder of the world.
Day Two: The Pyramids
Day two started with a local Egyptian breakfast my hotel provided (free!), served by two local hostesses while pyramids filled the view. I spoken broken Arabic I remembered from 20 years ago when I lived in the Middle East.
The car and Ahmed, my guide, arrived. We marched toward the pyramids.
With Ahmed, we sailed through gates to the right spots—by now, he understood what I hunted. Like R.K. Narayan's he Guide, he led me to a mound commanding a spectacular pyramid view where his father and grandfather used to bring him. Ahmed's stories were real. He had just lost his father unexpectedly and he was recalling great moments he used to spend with his father as he visited these sites. He shared some of them with me and it was very nice of him to trust me with these stories.
Away from crowds and hustlers, on the Ahmed could read my mind. He showed me the spot and I sat and sketched the pyramids in the middle of the desert from a perfect perspective. The weather was perfect - sunny and 70 degree farenheites. Then we moved on to the next location People walked and that is not advisable. The trick is to come to the main point and take shuttle buses that will take you to the next spot.
Once you enter into the Pyramid complex everything is perfect. the free rides. Just don't talk to the strangers - even if you have a guide. Act as if you speak no language. Just say Shukran to everything an move along if stranger approaches you. Be polite. But don't engage. No YES No NO. Just Shukran. That's the trick. Remember you are in the most visited spot in the world. This is not about Egyptian people. Consider this as Times Square or the Eifel Tower.
For their scale and stature, covering the Triangles doesn't consume more than a couple of hours, If you are not greedy. Or maybe our guide accelerated us through. My policy: I live to harvest the overall pleasure. I wasn't going to torture myself crawling through claustrophobic spaces inside the pyramids. Ahmed appreciated that.
We arrived at the spot where the 6,000-year-old boat was excavated and placed in the museum. Only then did realization dawn on me: water—a river—flowed next to the pyramids just 150 years ago, enough to sail a ship that size. We have no idea what else is going to go under water and sand in the next 2000 years.
That became my aha moment: we stood on a live excavation site. No one knows what else sleeps buried under layers and layers of sand and desert.
The pyramids reminded me of walking through California's Giant Sequoias. Being in the presence of sages washed over me. The wisdom. The patience.
Weather smiled on me. Temperature hovered in the 70s, pleasant and sunny. I completed my pyramid exploration and headed to see the Sphinx. My feet ached. My guide read what I needed—some space to sit and capture the moment. Ahmed again read my mind. I settled next to a kid coloring in her coloring book and quickly sketched the half-human, half-lion sculpture sitting between two pyramids.
My feet screamed for rest, and I believe in listening to my age and quitting at the top. We grabbed quick to-go lunch, and I returned to my hotel. Tourism part of my trip concluded.
Evening arrived, and I finally starting to feel confident enough to explore Cairo on my own. I scoped cafes, restaurants, laundry. Finally after 48 hours, I walked past the restaurant area next to my hotel and discovered a great outdoor family grill called Zaman.
For the first time, really good food materialized in Cairo. I'm sure it hides everywhere, but with my limited mobility, I hadn't accessed the best restaurants in the neighborhood.
Day Three: Real Cairo
The next day, I asked Ahmed to show me the real Cairo, and boy, did he deliver. Not just the Khan Khalili market where tourists swarm—he showed me the markets where his father and grandfather used to take him. We tasted some local delicacy that tasted like medu vada.
I'm not a fan of visiting temples, mosques, and churches when I travel. I don't understand why people obsess over them—like baby pictures, everyone thinks theirs outshines the rest.
Ahmed deflated a little when I asked him to choose just one religious place to show me. He brought me to a mosque that breathed beauty, peace, and artistry. The minarets soared gorgeously. It seemed like a liberal mosque—I saw many Westerners taking pictures there.
Entry cost nothing. I settled down on the nice marble floor and sketched quickly. The guide shared stories about his memories of his father and grandfather as we strolled through the old Egyptian markets where tourists never venture. No one hustled. No one stopped me from taking pictures. People radiated kindness. The market wasn't spotless, but it existed as it was.
Something surprising unfolded: I came to a spot where about fifteen students were sketching in the public square. I had discovered my mothership. I simply planted myself there and sketched the perspective quickly. Just then, the professor stormed in, scolding and shouting at the students, instructing them how to pay attention, focus, and be studious. He approached, examined my work, and didn't look pleased.
I realized this country doesn't embrace abstract artists anymore. The pharaohs have long vanished.
The last stop brought us to the Nile. Ahmed had arranged an entire boat for me for a 30-minute trip through downtown Cairo. I have to say, downtown Cairo transforms into a different city. It presents itself tidier, cleaner, with finished buildings, financial institutions, and hotels. An entire part of the city looks well-maintained and attended to by civil institutions. It just doesn't exist close to Giza.
So I'd recommend about four days if Nile cruises and dinners appeal to you—two near Giza and two near downtown. My focus locked onto the art, so I decided to stay close to the museum and pyramids. Next time, I'll plant myself near downtown and explore the Nile cruises.
Final Day: Seven Hours in the Museum
As an Abstract artist my fascinations into Egyptian art started with its script—those enigmatic hieroglyphs and emotive figurative faces always fascinated me. They were five thousand years older than the so called "modern" art we know as of today.
So after checking all the boxes as a tourist, I was so happy to have an entire day to visit the museum and the go a little deeper. I wanted to spend some time in their presence and sketch some of these eternal models.
My grand finale started early morning. I was among the first to descend on the museum. Visiting my favorite spots, sketching, I operated like a pro—I knew where to go at what time to dodge crowds. The security guards radiated kindness and admiration because I was absorbing the history rather than just snapping selfies. The experience immersed me completely.
Please see some of my favorite pictures.
Can you see the smile and love still lasting after thousands of years in that look?
Look how detailed these carvings are. Someone has destroyed their faces but the beauty still remains.
Standing on my feet sketching for seven hours exhausted me, so I returned home with tired feet but a heart brimming full. I got my laundry done in one hour as I embarked on my next leg to Mumbai to visit my 91-year-old mom, who was unwell and had just been admitted to the hospital.
Overall, my experience with Egypt rewarded me deeply. I loved the people. They radiated kindness, respect, and welcomed me as an Indian. In fact, being Indian proved helpful in most circumstances.
Having a local guide who could tailor the tour to my liking and needs became the best thing that could have happened to me.
